"...and then Neville somehow managed to melt his cauldron again." Violet said, still sounding faintly baffled by the memory. "I don't even know how he did it this time. We were making a cold potion, the only one we are making this year, and it still melted his cauldron."
Sirius barked out a laugh. "After everything you told me about Neville, this sounds about right."
"And professor Snape looked like he was about two seconds away from murdering the entire class."
"Still can't believe that Snivellus became a teacher." Sirius asked, sounding personally offended by the concept itself. "At Hogwarts?"
Violet blinked. "You know professor Snape?"
"Unfortunately." Sirius muttered darkly. "Merlin, I leave society for a decade and the greasy bat somehow becomes responsible for educating children. Truly, Azkaban was not the worst thing that happened to me."
Violet snorted loudly at that.
"Oh, don't give me that look." Sirius continued with complete seriousness. "The man used to lurk around corners like an evil librarian. I swear he learned how to glare before he learned how to walk."
"He still does that." Violet admitted.
"Of course he does."
"He's not that bad though." Violet said with a smile and Sirius looked at her with horror and betrayal. "Most of the time the things he gets mad about are all reasonable, he's kinda like a meaner version of professor Mcgonagall."
"My own goddaughter taking Snape's side? The betrayal!" Sirius yelled as he raised a fist and started waving it around like an old man, but there was mirth in his voice and he couldn't smother the smile on his face as Violet laughed.
For a moment the room felt lighter. Like she was talking to someone she had known for years instead of someone she had only just met.
Sirius didn't feel like a stranger, not really.
Maybe it was the way he laughed too loudly. Or how openly emotional he was. Or how his eyes kept softening every time he looked at her, like he still couldn't quite believe she was actually with him.
Whatever it was, Violet found herself relaxing without noticing.
Until the thoughts crept back in. A quiet, ugly thing sitting beneath the warmth.
Because if this felt nice, then why hadn't he come for her sooner?
Sirius noticed immediately. "What is it?" he asked, voice quieter now.
Violet hesitated for a moment before she finally looked up at him.
"When my parents died..." she began slowly. "Why did you leave me?"
The smile fell from Sirius' face so quickly it was almost frightening. For a moment, he just stared at her.
The hospital room suddenly felt too small. His chest tightened so violently it almost reminded him of the Dementors, of cold stone floors and endless screaming and the certainty that he had ruined everything. That everyone he cared about in his life were dead and it was all his fault, because he failed them.
He failed Regulus.
He failed Lily.
He failed James.
And, more than anyone else, he failed Violet.
He could remember it like it was yesterday. Handing over baby Violet to Hagrid among the ruins of his best friends' house as the unending hatred he felt for Peter, tRaItOr, clouding his gaze and drowning out everything else.
He had let go of her to chase revenge. And by the time he understood what he had done, what his decision had cost, he was in a cell in Azkaban.
"I thought I had time." Sirius admitted at last, his voice cracking around the words. "I gave you to Hagrid because I thought I could fix it quickly." He continued weakly. "I thought I could catch Peter, make him pay for what he did and just come back to tuck you in bed."
He couldn't help but laugh, tears starting to fall from his eyes as his voice cracked.
"I should've stayed." Sirius whispered. "I should have taken you and ran away if I had to. I should have been there." His voice broke completely as he looked at her. "I am sorry, Violet."
"I never stopped thinking about you." He said desperately, like he needed her to understand this one thing. "Not once. Every day I kept thinking that if I had just stayed with you instead..."
He cut himself off sharply as Violet suddenly moved forward and wrapped her arms around him.
Violet buried her face against his shoulder as her body shook with quiet sobs and Sirius held her as carefully as if she might disappear if he loosened his grip.
"I'm sorry." He whispered again and again into her hair, voice ragged. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." And for the first time in ten years, Sirius Black cried openly.
---------
"What do you mean by that?" Remus asked, his shoulders tense as he looked at Madame Xanadu. "Light or fire? You can't just leave it at that."
"Even after these last ten years, you still know very little." Madame Xanadu said with a sigh. "Even if I wanted to, I can't tell you much more than this. My sight is far reaching and far clearer than any other, and these truths have their costs."
"She can't tell us everything." Dumbledore said, his voice resigned to the fact. "She literally can't."
"Exactly." Madame Xanadu said with a huff. "You think that I wouldn't be stopping tragedies everyday if I could interfere openly? That I wouldn't have saved Camelot when I had the chance? I am of the Fair Folk Remus Lupin, and that comes with rules that humans can't begin to comprehend, not even by you; cursed child of Arcadia."
Dumbledore didn't know what that was supposed to mean but going by the way Remus flinched, it obviously wasn't anything good.
He wouldn't be sticking nose into it though, especially not when Remus was barely restarting to trust him. That seemed like a good way to get mauled.
"You said you couldn't tell us everything." So he instead redirected the conversation to what was important. "Then what can you tell us about the choice Violet will have to make?"
Madame Xanadu stopped for a moment, her head slowly tilting to one side before she finally spoke.
"Bright."
"...excuse me?"
"Whatever decision she has to make, the sight was bright. The object of the decision shined so brightly that I couldn't make sense of who or what they were."
"I thought you could see anything?" Remus asked, his tone accusatory.
"None can see everything boy." The greatest known seer in the world said with a huff. "There have been those who could confuse my sight in the past with their sheer presence. The carpenter that the world treats as god was one of them, and those who bear the title of Laughing Magicians have been known to elude my sight as well."
"...will Violet be in danger?"
"Oh Albus." Xanadu's voice was both amused and melancholic. "Shealreadyis."
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